


Like Water & Oil

by writingmonsters



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Flirting, Illya is Awkward and Grumpy, M/M, Mini fics, Napoleon is Reckless and Stupid, Tumblr Prompts, Very Bad Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7131725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I asked Tumblr for Napollya ficlet prompts and this is what happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stupidity Thy Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from spellitwithyourpeas: "Don't be stupid, Cowboy."

“ _Solo_!” Illya’s hoarse shout bursts in the air. “Get out of here!”

The whitewash of the floodlights and a dozen sub-machine gun sights are trained on Illya’s long frame, hunched behind a makeshift barricade of steel girders, pinning him in place.

It would be such an easy thing to vault the fence, to sprint across the gravel to their waiting car and leave Kuryakin to face the music with four bullets left in his Zastava and a cyanide tooth.

“Don’t be stupid, Cowboy,” Illya bellows over the whip-crack bursts of gunfire. In the glare of the lights his eyes are wide and wild, the color bleached from his skin. “Take the codes and go!”

But Napoleon is very, _very_ stupid when it comes to Illya Kuryakin. Stupid enough – in fact – that he dashes pell-mell back through the hail of bullets and kicked up gravel flak.

He will pay for it later. Illya will shoot him sullen, half-agonized glances and the muscles in his jaw will twitch as he stitches a neat line into Napoleon’s shoulder but neither of them will say a damn thing about it.

For now, Kuryakin only manages to gape, open-mouthed as Napoleon crashes to his knees behind the barricade, rumpled and grinning rakishly.

“Ah, Peril,” he wheezes. “I don’t intend on going anywhere without you.”


	2. Smooth as Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from mykaijusizefeels on Tumblr: KGB Agent Illya Kuryakin catches thief Napoleon Solo trying to pick his pocket.

He doesn’t so much as blink, simply goes on scrutinizing _Nocturne in Black and Gold_ like it holds all the secrets of the universe. “Remove your hand from my pocket, or I will remove it from your body.”

Napoleon’s grin is shameless. It’s a rare thing for him to be caught in the act. _Sloppy, sloppy Solo._ “Ah, forgive me _tovarisch_ ,” he chuckles. “I was simply admiring the artistry.” And he extricates his hand, giving the Russian a light slap on the ass for good measure.

The mark bares his teeth and _snarls_.

“Now you’ve got me wondering,” Napoleon forges onward, crowding up close with a smirk. “What’s six-and-a-half feet of Ruskie Adonis doing on this side of the Iron Curtain?” He is so close he can feel the heat of the blush creeping across those blunted cheekbones, the hard press of muscle – and a neat little handgun – beneath the cut of the stranger’s jacket. And, is he _trembling_? “Let me guess, KGB?”

“I will end you.” But it’s too breathless, too shell-shocked to be much of a threat.

Napoleon might just die. It’s too easy, too perfect. “Of course you will, Super-Agent.” He reaches up, flicks the brim of that stupid flat cap, and leans in so that his breath ghosts against the Russian’s ear. “Maybe I’ll let you make good on that threat tonight.”

The Russian is looking everywhere, anywhere in the gallery that is not at Napoleon. It’s precious. “What makes you think I will be seeing you ever again?”

Hook line and sinker. Napoleon takes one easy step back, skims a palm over his Brylcreem-smooth hair. “No reason,” he hums, hot and wicked. “Unless you want your watch back.”

And then he turns on his heel and he’s gone, smooth as blue smoke.


	3. Drunk as a Russian Skunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt: "It's 8:30, I have a hangover, and you're annoying me."
> 
> Thanks to spellitwithyourpeas!

Illya is the one to meet with the Mafiya. It is rare that he is the one to have a face-to-face with the mark unless gratuitous violence is involved, but Waverly has given the marching orders. Send the Russian to catch a Russian.

And it works.

Napoleon listens through the earpiece as Illya plays the fool - they ply him with vodka, swapping stories and big booming laughs, and Illya lets his tongue loosen. The man barely strings together more than five words at a time in English, and yet Napoleon is amazed as his partner tells detailed, outlandish stories in quick, smirking tones.

Illya might have been an extraordinary actor in a different life. There is no indication of the sullen, hard-forged KGB agent. Instead he plays a wide-eyed idealist, a big dumb farm boy to be turned into an easy puppet.

He manages to drink a third of the bottle of vodka before his speech slurs and his eyes shine. Illya stumbles when they send him on his way, clutching at the door frame and grinning like a loon at the good business they have done.

“Well done, Peril,” Napoleon applauds when he shuffles his big, unwieldy frame into the waiting car. “You can drop the act now.”

Illya juts out his lower lip and steadfastly refuses to look Napoleon in the eye. “Is not act,” he mumbles. “Am very drunk.”

Napoleon blinks. “You _can’t_ be serious.”

“Am.” Illya flushes, ducking his head. “Is reason I do not drink often.” His brow is furrowed in concentration, the words slipping half into Russian and back again.

“You _are_ serious!” Napoleon throws his head back and chortles. “My God, Illya, this is amazing!”

It turns out that a drunk Illya is a sulky Illya; he pouts all the way back to their hotel suite.

The next morning, however, sulky Illya has turned into ‘Cranky Kuryakin’. Napoleon finds him tangled in the bed sheets, attempting to suffocate himself with the pillow.

“Rise and shine, Peril!”

Illya moans, rumpled and bruise-eyed. “No. Go away.”

“Aw,” Napoleon grins. “Don’t be like that. It’s time for you to be up - you have another meeting with our new friends in an hour.”

Illya redoubles his efforts at manual suffocation. “Is 8:30,” he grumbles into the pillowcase. “I have hangover. Go away.”

Napoleon perches on the edge of the bed, trailing his fingers over Illya’s bare ankle. “I brought coffee…”

That, at least, manages to get Illya out of bed.


	4. The UNCLE Initiative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt from mykaijusizefeels: Napollya Superpower AU. So of course I took that fun little nugget and made it as miserable as I possibly could.

It all comes to a head in Rome, when Illya catches him with blue sparks dancing between his fingertips and several gorgeous pieces of art deco jewelry hidden in his pockets. The men’s room becomes a battlefield of splinters and shattered porcelain and Illya’s knuckles are raw and bloody when he whirls on Napoleon. “ _Idiot_ ,” he spits, his whole body shaking. “You stupid… Do you not see?! Your powers are not for… for _foolishness_!”

Napoleon does not so much as flinch. He has heard the tirade before, from his mother, from the military officers, from Sanders and Waverly and the little charmspeaker Gaby Teller and now from the Red Peril himself. Illya Nikovetch Kuryakin. It’s getting old.

“You are not some common, shitty magic safecracker now,” Illya seethes. “You are UNCLE Operative – you should be better than this.”

Solo finally cracks, all blue eyes and bright sparks as he steps in close, crowds Illya back against the broken mirrors.

“What do you think we are, Peril? Heroes?” Napoleon’s lips curl, a sharp flash of white teeth. “You think that, because I’m gifted, I should put myself up on some kind of moral pedestal? Because, here’s a newsflash for you super-agent – everything special about you came out of a bottle.” He plants one blunt, shimmering finger against Illya’s heaving chest and shoves. “You have no right to pass judgement on me. You’re not a hero. You’re not _gifted_. You’re a genetically modified weapon with a hair-trigger temper.”

Illya grits his teeth. There are cobalt and cerulean sparks on the air and the blood rushes in his ears so that he can hardly hear himself when he grits out “ _I know_.”

“Excuse me?” Napoleon blinks, takes half a step back like he’s been slapped.

“I know what I am,” Illya says. His voice is low, soft, and the hollow corners of the bathroom scoop up the sound and throw it back cold and hollow. “By now you have surely read my file. Born average, but two gifted parents. Wasted potential.” He swallows down the knot forming at the base of his tongue. “My father – he was shamed, sent to gulag. And the scouts come after that, they tell me of their experimental program. The first manufactured superpowers. They need volunteers and they say they would help me restore my family’s name. So I sign up.”

“Illya.” Not Peril, not Kuryakin. “Jesus Christ,” Napoleon whispers.

He shrugs. “They pump me full of chemicals so that it feels like my brain melts out my ears and my eyeballs fall out of my head and they stab me full of needles, and when it is over they say ‘congratulations, _tovarisch_. You are gifted now, with all the strength of the Communist Party’. And then they tell me I am to be the new fist of Communism and I cannot refuse because _you do not say no to Russia_.”

Solo makes a sound like he is choking on his own tongue.

Illya’s cheeks are wet, his hands tremble, but the words come fast and steady now, falling like stones into the chasm between them. “I was a weapon before UNCLE, yes. You are right. My gift is manufactured, was forced upon me – an eleven year old boy. It is a gift that hurts inside of me and hurts others when I let it loose. And… I need that hurt to mean something. I use a bad thing to do good.” He does not look Napoleon in the eye, does not want to know what he will see there. “You understand me now?” God, but he feels like he might cry.

Napoleon twists his hand and crooks his fingers, the telekinetic sparks tingle against Illya’s skin, scratching against a day’s growth of stubble where they slide beneath his chin and tip reluctant eyes up to meet Solo’s own. There is no pity there, no revulsion or anger, only a sudden and heart-rending understanding. “I think I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Napoleon is basically a thieving Wanda Maximoff rip-off, and Illya is the saddest goddamn combination of Captain America and the Winter Soldier you could possibly imagine.
> 
> Anybody catch the Avengers quote I slipped in there?   
> "You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."


End file.
